Arnobius — Against the Nations 2.55
55.1. When we have agreed, defeated, that these things are, and have not emptily nodded that all human affairs teem with them, it will follow that they ask: “Why then does almighty God not take away these evils but suffer them to be and to go on through all ages in stubborn continuation?”
2. — If understanding of God the King and Prince is with us and we do not wish to wander through impious insanities of suspicions, we must answer that we do not know those things and never sought or studied to learn what could be grasped by no faculties; and you will judge it better—indeed rather more—to remain within the bounds of not-knowing and ignorance than to say that nothing happens except by God’s will, so that He would at once be understood both to give causes to evils and to be the founder of countless miseries.
3. “Whence then,” you will say, “are all these evils?” “From the elements,” the wise say, “and from their unevenness”—which how it can happen that things without sense and judgment are alleged malicious and harmful, or rather that he is not the more malicious and harmful who took into the making of some work things that would be worst and most injurious—belongs to those who claim to see through it.
4. “What then of us? whence?” — There is no necessity of an answer. Whether we can say or are less able and cannot, either is small with us; nor do we count it among great weights either to be ignorant of this or to know it, content to have set down one thing alone: that nothing harmful and deadly proceeds from God the Prince. This we hold, this we know, in this one truth of knowledge and science we stand: that nothing is done by Him except what is saving for all, what is sweet, what is fullest of love and joy and gladness, what has infinite and incorruptible pleasures, what each by all vows seeks to obtain for himself, and counts outside these things what is deadly and death-bearing.
Latin
55.1. Quae cum esse consenserimus victi et universa his scatere non inaniter adnuerimus humana, consequetur ut rogitent: ''Cur ergo haec mala deus omnipotens non aufert sed esse perpetitur et cum omnibus saeculis pertinaci continuatione procedere?''.
2. - Si intellectus nobis adfuerit dei regis ac principis nec per impias vagari suspicionum voluerimus insanias, respondeamus necesse est, nescire nos ista nec quae nullis possent facultatibus comprehendi expetisse aliquando aut studuisse cognoscere: meliusque ducetis, quinimmo potius magis <in> inscientiae finibus atque ignorantiae permanere quam nisi dei dicere nihil fieri per voluntatem, ut simul intellegatur et malis eum causas dare et miseriarum esse innumerabilium conditorem.
3. ''Mala ergo, dicetis, unde sunt haec omnia?''. ''Ex elementis'' inquiunt, ''et ex eorum inaequabilitate,'' sapientes: quod fieri qui possit ut quae sensum et iudicium non habent malitiosa esse perhibeantur et noxia aut non ille sit potius malitiosus et noxius, qui res pessimas et nocentissimas futuras in alicuius operis adsumpsit effectum, eorum est qui adserunt pervidere.
4. ''Quid ergo nos? unde?''. - Responsionis necessitas nulla est. Sive enim possumus dicere, sive minus valemus nec possumus, utrumque apud nos parvum est; nec in magnis ponderibus ducimus vel ignorare istud vel scire, unum solum posuisse contenti, nihil a deo principe quod sit nocens atque exitiabile proficisci. Hoc tenemus, hoc novimus, in hac una consistimus cognitionis et scientiae veritate, nihil ab eo fieri nisi quod sit omnibus salutare, quod dulce, quod amoris et gaudii laetitiaeque plenissimum, quod infinitas habeat atque incorruptibiles voluptates, quod sibi quisque contingere votis omnibus expetat, forisque ab his esse exitiabile ac mortiferum ducat.